What Do We Want From Black Love?

Controversy was sparked when TDE superstar Kendrick Lamar confirmed that he was engaged to his long time girlfriend Whitney Alford. Activist Rashida Strober called him “ANOTHER FAKE CONSCIOUS MUTHER F-KER” and a “coon” because Alford is light complexion. He raps and talks about his love for darker-skinned women in his music (check “Complexion”), and has been vocal about challenging beauty standards by deliberately including women with darker complexions in his music videos. Strober and many others feel that Kendrick is a hypocrite for his political conscious art not matching his life.

This debate is a fair one, in the sense that it sheds light on the often salient hypocritical conceptions Black men (more so than Black women) have on the politics of Black Love. We rarely (if ever) see Black female musicians sing about their love for Black men (or dark-skinned Black men) while dating non-Black men. But we do often see Black…